The rider’s ride

Vitus Venon Evo, £tbc, vitusbikes.com

If you’ve never heard of the Venon Evo, that’s because it’s so new it isn’t even out yet – this bike is a prototype that Vitus gave to Cyclist for testing. I’m just thankful I didn’t crash it on one of Ventoux’s sketchy gravel descents.

The bike sits in between Vitus’s road bike, the Vitesse

Evo, and its gravel bike, the Substance, and is designed to be comfortable on a range of surfaces – an ‘all-road’ bike. As such, it can come specced with deep section wheels and a 2x groupset if you’re more road-oriented, or with shallow rims, chunky tyres and 1x groupset if you’re doing more gravel. I actually opted for a bit of both – deep rims with wide tyres, and a 2x groupset but with a wide-range cassette. It proved to be the perfect setup for Ventoux’s combination of road, gravel and steep gradients.

To keep it road-friendly, the Venon Evo’s frame is light, the geometry is reasonably sporty, the cockpit is aero with fully internal cabling and there are no additional mounting points for bags or mudguards. Where it gets gravelly is in the clearance, the frameset accepting up to 40mm tyres.

If you like to mix up your riding but you’ve only got room for one bike in your garage, the Venon Evo is well worth a look.